Ambraser Hofjagdspiel

The Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (Court Hunting Pack of Ambras; sometimes the Ambras falconer cards^[1] or the Courtly Hunt Cards^[2][3]) is a pack of cards painted around 1440–1445 and attributed to the engraver Konrad Witz from Basel, Switzerland.^[4] It originally consisted of fifty-six cards from which only 54 survive, all distributed in four suits, falcons, lures, hounds and herons, symbols related to hunting.^[4] Each suit contained ten pip cards with the 10s being represented by a banner like many old German playing cards and modern Swiss playing cards. There are four face cards per suit: the Unter, Ober, Queen, and King. It was found in a collection at the Ambras Castle, in Innsbruck, Austria, in the 16th century, and now figures as a precious item in the collection of cards of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna.^[5]

Facsimile

A facsimile of the pack was produced as a boxed set in 1995 by Piatnik in conjunction with the Kunsthistorisches Museum. It makes no attempt to reproduce the missing two cards of the original pack.^[6][7]

See also

• Flemish Hunting Deck, another 15th-century hunting deck
• Stuttgarter Kartenspiel, another 15th-century hunting deck
• Hofämterspiel, a deck found together with the Hofjagdspiel in Ambras Castle

References